


game of hearts

by sinnerlikeme



Series: daisybucky. [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Arcades, Crushes, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 18:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15102032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnerlikeme/pseuds/sinnerlikeme
Summary: “is this a date?”“i dunno, do you want it to be?”





	game of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> when i say i cried writing this .. i mean that shit

“Ummm. So. I have a question.”

Daisy leans on her elbow, chin in her hand. She bats her pretty lashes, but Bucky was already swooning from how close she is, standing at the counter where he’s sitting.

He raises his eyebrows and mirrors her position, smiling at her expectantly. “Okey dokey.”

Her lips twitch; her brown eyes are glittery with something he’s certain is mischief. Steve used to get that look, ages and ages ago, right before he set off to deck someone twice his size.

“So. Like. If you wanted to,” she begins cautiously, watching to catch his reaction, “Simmons suggested we do something fun later. Just the two of us. Y’know, after the week we’ve had. So I thought maybe you’d wanna...go to an arcade or whatever. It’s kinda old-fashioned but I used to go to them all the time. Sorta sounds cool, I dunno.” She shrugs.

He blinks, surprised. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, if anything, but it definitely wasn’t something as simple as this proposition. He instantly loves it, of course. He’d go wherever, if it meant she was there.

“Yeah,” he replies enthusiastically. “Yeah, that sounds cool. I’d love to.” And he relishes the smile that breaks out across her face, because she looks so genuinely happy that he said yes. He wonders, vaguely, how many people have stood her up for her to look like he just told her he’d take her to the moon.

Bucky Barnes decides right then he wants to spend the rest of his life making Daisy Johnson smile like that.

 

* * *

 

The arcade is dark, dimly lit by the neon screens of games and warm from the closeness of bodies wandering around. Bucky smells pizza as soon as they walk in, and Daisy squeezes his hand, knowing he can get overwhelmed in crowds.

“Is this okay?” she asks over the dull thud of music and chatty voices. She suddenly sounds hesitant.

“Yeah,” Bucky responds, stuffing his left hand into his pocket. It does freak him out a little, seeing all these people, being in the semi-dark, but she’s holding his hand and she’s looking at him, and he’s not nearly as scared as he would be without her.

She tugs on his fingers and jerks her head towards the eatery. “Come on, you gotta try their soda.”

“I thought you’d never been here before,” he points out as she pulls him in the direction of sweet, blessed food.

“I didn’t say that,” Daisy says wryly, smirking. “I have. Just not with you. Or anyone, really.”

So this place is almost like her secret hiding spot, somewhere she can go to be a kid again. She probably went to a bunch of arcades growing up, since she went from house to house in a few different states. Bringing him here tonight feels like she’s sharing a piece of her scattered childhood with him.

They order a miniature pizza (he gapes at it for a minute—he’s never seen a pizza be so small) and two Cokes, which he’s had before, but apparently the Cokes served here are infinitely and inarguably better than Coke anywhere else. They sit in a booth at the far back of the restaurant (always aiming to avoid other people and their curious, hey-wait-a-minute eyes) and eat their tiny pizza and drink their outstanding soda.

(The pizza is good but he can’t tell the difference between the Coke he normally drinks and the arcade’s, but he pretends it’s the greatest ever for her sake.)

“So,” Daisy says, licking sauce off her thumb, “based solely on this fantastic meal, what do you think of this place so far?”

“Um, it’s the best arcade in the history of arcades,” he tells her, and she cracks up. He loves unintentionally making her laugh. Her nose scrunches up and she laughs with her whole body. It fills him with love. The sound itself is probably love.

“You right, you right,” she agrees, and finishes off her soda. He puts his chin in his hand and watches her, endeared. She’s the cutest girl he has ever met. And he used to know a lot of them, once upon a time, back when it didn’t take a Herculean effort to put himself out there. Maybe Daisy was supposed to be his one and only in this day and age.

“What’re you staring at?” she’s asking self-consciously. “Shoot, do I have sauce on my face? Gah, I hate that.”

She grabs her napkin and dabs her mouth and chin. He turns red up to his hairline; he hadn’t meant to stare for _that_ long. It always catches him off-guard how easy it is to just look at her. He sees something new every time.

“No, you’re fine,” Bucky assures quickly. “Romanov couldn’t eat pizza as fast as you and not make a mess.” He regrets saying it as soon as it exits his mouth, mostly because it might not be true since he’s never spent more than five minutes around Nat. (She scares him a bit more than Daisy does, though Daisy has balance because she’s nice to him. Natasha is just scary.)

(Not to mention they’ve beat each other up too many times for him to just casually start a conversation.)

Daisy laughs again, and he hopes it’s because she found that funny and not out of pity at his aimless attempt at humor. He’s still trying to figure out what’s deemed as funny nowadays.

Daisy links their hands again upon exiting the restroom, and he instantly feels better when their palms touch. Her hand is tiny, warm, and soft, while his is big and his fingers are calloused. It doesn’t seem to bother her, though.

“So, what do you wanna do first?” she chirps.

He shrugs. “I’m an old man. You tell me.”

She grins, then tugs him through the aisles of games and loud machines that go _dingdingding_ when someone scores points, weaving through the crowd of mostly teenagers until she gets to a game that luckily isn’t in use.

Bucky squints at the title, reaching into his jeans for a quarter. “Pac-Man?” he says, wondering why it seems familiar.

“Yep.” She holds her hand out and he gives her the coin, which she feeds to the machine. The game starts up with funny little sound effects. “Lemme show you how it’s done.”

“Oh, okay. You are the expert.” He holds up his hands and she kicks him playfully in the shin.

He folds his arms and watches intently as Daisy completes up to five levels without even losing a life. Bucky nervously gives it a go after she pushes him in front of the controls, which he grips very gently in both hands. (The last thing either of them need is to pay damages in the instance he breaks them.)

He is utter shit at the game, but Daisy cheers him on with the eagerness of a soccer mom rooting for her kid, and slaps him on the arm when he apologizes for reaching GAME OVER. She shakes her head and says, “It takes practice.”

“Quick, walk away before anyone realizes you’re with me,” he jokes, and she slaps him again.

“Shush!” she chastises, smiling. “Okay, let’s play somethin’ else that’s a little less nerve-wracking.” Naturally, her hand slips into his, the left one this time, and he sucks in a breath she doesn’t hear. And yet his vibranium fingers detect her softness and her warmth, and his whole arm recalibrates. She doesn’t notice—a relief, since he wouldn’t be able to explain why it randomly did that right when she touched him. He blushes again.

They spend the next hour maneuvering their way around, Daisy always holding on to him in some way. He likes the closeness, how she wants him to feel safe despite all the people here. It’s not too bad; he barely pays attention to them, especially not if he’s trying to one-up Daisy at games she’s been playing all her life. He loves her competitive streak and seeing how smug she gets whenever she scores the highest.

“Win me that stuffed pig and I’ll kiss you on the cheek,” Daisy bargains while they’re taking a break from the electronics, and points at the pig in question.

“Wow,” Bucky drawls. “One whole kiss on the cheek, huh?”

She clings to his arm like a dame claiming her territory. “Mhm,” she hums, nodding. “I’ll even let you pick which one.”

“Oh, gosh,” he gasps in exaggerated delight. “How generous. I must win you that pig no matter the cost.”

She snorts, breaking character. “Yeah, do that. I want it.”

The goal is to knock down all the moving rocket ships within a thirty-second period, and Bucky has never felt such pressure in his life. But he’s determined to win that damn pig. He’ll play it over and over until she gets it.

Being an ex-military sniper helps, because he shoots down all the mechanical ships with two seconds to spare. The guy who runs the game seems both impressed and wary.

Daisy squeals like a little girl and clutches the stuffed pig with the biggest smile on her face. “Thank youuu!” She gives him a hug around his waist, and he beams stupidly into her hair. She smells good, he notes for the thousandth time tonight. He has the tendency to hug her with just his right arm out of habit, but he uses both arms to hold her to him.

“You’re the best ever,” she tells him. “What should we name it?” She holds up the pig, still pressed close to Bucky’s body.

He raises his eyebrows. “We?”

“Yeah. We.” She licks her thumb and fixes the stuffed animal’s face, for the fake fur was in its eyes and it looked disgruntled. “I can’t think of a name by myself.”

“Wilson,” Bucky suggests, then starts giggling. “No, no. That’s so mean. Uhm...Abraham.”

“Abraham?” she repeats, making an amused face.

“Yeah, like the president,” Bucky defends with a shrug. “C’mon, I was named after one. It’ll be funny.”

“Hm.” Daisy studies the pig, and Bucky realizes he’s let go a bit, but his right hand is on her lower back. Standing so close, he’d think they were together if he was anybody else who saw.

“Reznor,” Daisy says suddenly, and when Bucky looks puzzled she points to the sign above the game that says BATTLE OF REZNOR. “To remember where I got him from.”

Bucky grins. “Oh. Yeah. I like that.”

“Reznor _Abraham_ ,” Daisy emphasizes, and he laughs. “We both named him. We’ll tell everybody we have a son now.”

He laughs, moving his hand to put his arm around her neck. “I can roll with that,” he says approvingly.

 _We have a son now._ That’s gonna ring in his head forever.

 

* * *

 

They stay for a while longer, and Daisy insists he give Pac-Man another go before they leave. He is no better at it now than he was an hour ago, but he can’t seem to deny her anything.

The sky is on its way to turning full navy when they leave, and Bucky follows Daisy’s eyes, admiring the stars. She’s prettier than all of them combined, he thinks.

“Oh, I just remembered,” she says as they’re halfway to her van, “I didn’t give you your kiss.”

He chokes and passes it off as a cough. “You don’t have to.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s one little cheek kiss. Which one?”

He’s glad it’s dark so she can’t see him blushing. “The right,” he says, because she favors that side, anyway.

Daisy stands up on her tiptoes and gives his cheek a theatrical smooch. “Mwah. Thank you, kind sir.”

“You are welcome, my lady,” he teases, looping his arm around her neck again. She leans into him comfortably and they walk the remaining distance to her van.

Something comes over him them, some otherworldly sense of euphoria he can only imagine is what being high is like. Daisy’s his best friend and she treated him to a fun night of pizza and vintage video games and kissed him on the cheek for winning her a stuffed pig. She held his hand without being asked, just because she knows how he gets in crowds. And it occurs to him then that he wasn’t nervous at all tonight. He didn’t feel a hint of anxiety about anything. Because of her presence. She’s like that on missions, too—he feels better about what they’re doing or where they are because she’s with him and makes it easier to handle and process.

“Is this a date?” he hears himself ask, before really considering the ramifications of voicing such a loaded question.

They stop in front of her van. She pulls back to look up at him, and he’s relieved to see she’s grinning slightly, and she doesn’t appear to be bothered by it. “I dunno, do you want it to be?”

He meets her eyes, and they’re so big and brown and beautiful, and she’s smiling in that cute soft way of hers, and his answer both dies and is reborn in his throat in the same second. Daisy waits, ever so patiently, for him to say, “Yeah. I do.”

There’s another pause where they look at each other, and then he gathers the courage to admit, albeit shakily, “I really wanna kiss you.” He’s never wanted anything more in his life. He has wanted to since the day they met.

“Then kiss me, silly,” she whispers, still smiling, so he does.

He cups her face between his mismatched hands, coaxing her chin up, and presses his lips to hers as his mind roars with joy, overwhelming the terror that was threatening to not let him do anything at all. Her lips are like her hands: soft, warm, present. The fingers not holding Reznor Abraham curl around his wrist, and she kisses him back.

It only lasts for about fifteen seconds, but to Bucky it feels like a thousand and one lifetimes. He forces his hands to drop to her shoulders, but their foreheads are practically touching, and she’s looking at him in a borderline dazed fashion.

Now she’s the one blushing, and it’s so adorable he could kiss her again. But he won’t, he can’t, not yet.

“Okay,” is all she says, shifting the hand on his wrist to his on her shoulder. “We should—definitely do more of that, just—not in a parking lot with creepers.”

He snorts a laugh, and kisses her forehead. “Okay.”

He offers to drive home, and she climbs into the passenger’s seat with Reznor perched on her lap. Bucky turns on the radio after backing out of their spot, and a bubbly pop song about love fills the cab. They can’t look at each other, but their smiles are the same, and he’s positive she feels just as light and fuzzy as he does. He wants to hold her hand, so he takes it, bringing her knuckles to his lips quietly.

“I like that song,” she murmurs when it ends.

“Me too,” he agrees, squeezing her hand.

Translation: _I like you. I like you, too._

Bucky Barnes decides right then he wants to spend the rest of his life, and the rest of hers, proving just how much.

**Author's Note:**

> ur a true daisybucky warrior if u know where reznor is from
> 
> kudos and reviews are cool thanks


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